Peacemaker's Footsteps
by Shadsie
Summary: Rumors of Vash's death abounded. A hero-worshipping young gunman from Inepril took up Vash's look and name, determined not to let his legacy die. Join him on his journey in another man's boots as he learns a legend's scars and ultimately finds himself.


_**Disclaimer and Notes:**_ _Trigun belongs to the honorable Yasuhiro Nightow and I plan to make no profit from this fan fiction. I wanted this story to be "either anime or manga, whichever the reader wishes to imagine," but because of little details, it turned out to be more anime-based, at least in my mind. I haven't been much for Trigun fic as of late (having been dragged away to the land of Hyrule), but I've found when I get the gumption to write, or am called upon to role play for Trigun, the planet with the double suns seems to come right back to me. I'm hoping this story brings back the feelings of the better of my old stories._

_*Knock, knock!* Is anyone still in this fandom anymore? The major drama has died down and I've mellowed out – it's safe to come back! _

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**PEACEMAKER'S FOOTSTEPS**

**A Trigun Fan Fiction by Shadsie**

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My name is Brian Daniels. My Pa is Jack – like the whiskey, but he's never touched a drop of liquor in his life. I tried a shot of bourbon once and didn't see the appeal it has for most folk and t' me, beer just tastes like rancid water. I'm nineteen years old, tall and blond – that's quite important to my story, ya see. Since I've introduced myself proper, let me tell you the story I have to tell. It's of how I found myself by walkin' in someone else's boots for a while. It began when I decided that I didn't want to be Brian Daniels anymore.

I wanted to be Vash the Stampede.

That's what led to me gelling up my hair, lookin' back and forth between a mirror and the face of a dead man. I was using an old wanted poster with a black and white photograph t' get my look right. I wanted to be as detailed as I could. Certain things had to be missed. My folks weren't rich enough to get me a cybernetic if I lost a limb and I wasn't about to hack off my left arm for that, 'specially considerin' I'm left-handed. I had to train myself hard to use a gun well in my right. I'm a good shot, a real good shot, so I had that goin' for me already.

Dead? Well, yeah, t' me, ol' Vash was dead at the time. The rumors fly like that. No one knows if he's dead or alive anymore these days, ya know? Back then, there'd been a report that an outland ranger'd found a body dressed in a long red coat out in the desert, outside the old July ruins. It was too decomposed and dried-up for the Feds to confirm an ID, but some of the personal effects on the corpse lead to a lot of people thinkin' it must be Vash.

Oh, some said that it couldn't be him. Some of the details just didn't add up, like the bullet hole in the back of the coat. Vash's instincts were just too sharp for that, so the stories say. Others said that Vash was a force of nature, someone – something - that would be around forever, a Plant Messenger, a guardian angel… then there were those that said even Plant Messengers got old. Even legends faded, lost their edge and became mortal like the rest of us. There were no more reports of Vash-sightings after that, so, naturally, most folk assumed he'd passed on. I didn't know if it was really true or not. What I did know is that I did not want his name or his legend to die.

I had the height and the hair – though a lot of folk said that Vash's hair had gone black, like Plant-decay… most knew him as a blond man and no one could get the stories straight. I was sure I wasn't as good a shot as he was, he was a legend, but I was good enough to get by and knew some trick shots. I had the local gunsmith custom me up a gun, and believe it or not, this tough guy can sew – learned from my Ma and made up my own coat. I even made up a special glove for my left arm to look like his from all of the newspaper photos… I put in some real work. Let me tell you, gelling up my hair like that was annoying. I was used to wearing it in a center part and beneath a cowboy hat.

Why did I want to be Vash? It was because, dead or alive, his was a name I thought shouldn't die. You see, when ya grow up in Inepril City, you hear the stories. He may have been a dangerous outlaw to the rest of the world, but in Inepril City, he was a hero. He had singled-handedly saved this city from financial extinction by saving it from a pair of outlaws that had been called in to capture him, but who'd turned on the town. He'd also saved our local Plant, which had been dying at the time he'd arrived. That was many years ago, back when my Pa was a kid.

What affected me the most, though, was the time when I saw him when I was eight years old. I was staying at my Grandma's house in the town of Nameless. She told me that it used to be a nameless town when she was young, but 'ventually people callin' it 'the nameless town' just started callin' it Nameless, so the town's name was Nameless. Grandma and I were clothes shopping – how I hated that. She was buying me clothes for school, which was startin' up again in a couple of weeks and she'd make me try on clothes and go on about how precious I looked and hitch up my britches to make sure they fit.

She'd had stuff she bought me wrapped up and was taking me to another store when we heard gunshots and saw a crowd gathered in the streets. I ran and she shouted after me, but her old skinny legs couldn't keep up with mine. I poked my little head between the legs of a couple of scared adults. I saw a bunch of men, some with guns, some carrying sacks of money – now, I found out later that they hadn't robbed the town bank, but had raided the safe from the very store Grandma had been trying to drag me to. One of the bandits held a lady on his arm. She struggled and kicked and I'm pretty sure I saw her bite the guy's arm, but he held tight to her. The guy wanted his gang to have a clean getaway, no police, no posse, and that they were takin' the girl to make sure of that. They said they'd release her after several isles if no one followed to walk back on her own, but if they were followed, they'd make her dead.

The bandit leader was a tough bastard. The lady elbowed him right in the chest and he didn't budge. He yelled at her an' forced his gun past her teeth. I remember him screaming that he was ready to blow her brains out right then if she didn't settle down. That was when I heard gunfire and I saw blood spray from his right shoulder. The man crumpled to the ground. The lady ran toward the crowd, toward me and more gun reports sounded. I saw the gang members that had been holdin' weapons wring their wrists in pain. A blur of red jumped into the street and people screamed – "It's Vash the Stampede!"

The bandits quailed, all repeating the name; "Vash?" "V-V-Vash the St-St-Stampede?"

And he told the men not to even think about reaching for their dropped weapons. He glared at them like ice… I remember that.

"You will return the money you stole and you will apologize to the good people of this town for the trouble you gave them," he said.

And they did. They were as meek as lambs returnin' the money to the store and submitting to arrest under his watchful glare. Vash stayed beside the leader. I was utterly amazed as I, eight years old, watched him dig the bullet out of the man he'd shot with a small knife and dress the wound in tight bandages. He insisted to the sheriff of Nameless that the man get medical treatment and he even pulled a wad of double dollars out of his pocket for that purpose. Now, the sheriff didn't arrest Vash… Sheriff Barney had always thought the rumors of Vash the Stampede were overblown, anyway, and since Vash had helped him out in a big way, he let him go. Sheriff Barney had heard more rumors of Vash being a hero than of him being the Devil's helper, at least that's what I'd heard. Maybe he'd just been embarrassed that a stranger had come along and done his job for him, so he let him go hopin' he'd be so grateful for his freedom he wouldn't tell anyone about it.

Most towns were not like Nameless and most town sheriffs were not like ol' Barney. Even at the age of eight, I knew the man in red had taken a big risk. Some people didn't think he was the real deal, just a man using the name, but that shooting… Never before or since, even at the traveling shows, had I seen a shootist so skilled. I was amazed, too, that no one had died. Most snipers and lawmen skilled enough to shoot guns from the hands of a bunch of men in rapid succession would have just gone for their leader's head, but this Vash – he'd gone for the shoulder and was concerned for the man's health afterward! This was a source of fascination for my young mind and would remain so for years to come, to this very day. The man I'd seen in Nameless was a gunman so skilled that he could handle multiple armed men and dangerous situations without killin' anyone.

My childhood had been filled with stories and comics about righteous lawmen and heroic outlaws that dropped the bad guys with one shot each and were praised for killin' the strong. I wasn't impressed by them n'more after that day. I'd seen a man who was skilled enough not to kill, an' I thought that was braver.

And I said to Grandma; "When I grow up, I wanna be like him." An' she told me that I was an idiot-child and that he was a stupid, stupid man to have done what he did and maybe he was so guilt-ridden over his horrible crimes that he decided to be a suicidal do-gooder and to never, ever say anythin' like that again.

The old bat must have been spinnin' in her grave the day I set out from Inepril. Ma and Pa knew what I was doin', but they expected I'd spend a week out in the desert before comin' back home, hot an' tired to them. I made sure I looked the part, grabbed up my necessary things, and set out across the desert. I didn't have any real destination. I planned to drift in the wind, just like my hero. I suppose he'd had a rhyme and reason to what he did, destinations… it was said by many that he'd spent a good chunk of his life lookin' for someone, some "him" of some sort. Most stories I'd heard pegged him as a careless drifter. Others, of course, said that he'd followed loot, women, and places to stir up trouble and to destroy.

It was out on th' sands and in the towns that I realized how much more "legend" than man Vash really was.

Ya see, my plan was to wander 'round and to take care of trouble I saw – to live up to the "heroic" half of the Vash-stories, like the one's I'd heard growing up and like the one I'd watched. I was gonna help people with their troubles and scare outlaws. I was going to do things to spread the love and peace the people of my hometown knew him for. I knew it was going t' be dangerous. I knew I'd have bounty hunters tailin' me. I knew some of the outlaws wouldn't be gutless and would shoot upon seein' me wave my gun around. I was a young man, thought I was invincible, and if I could do one good thing in m' life, it would be to keep the Vash-legend alive.

Endin' as a dried up body in the desert – that wasn't the way to go out for a guy like him. I didn't wanna die, but if I did, it would be as Vash and it would be in a blaze o' glory. I was determined to walk in the peacemaker's footsteps, even if it killed me.

Little kids starin' up at me in awe when I showed them some trick shots… ridin' free across the desert on a swift thomas, getting' the better of a bounty huntin' gang… Campin' out lonely 'neath the fifth moon, wonderin' what it'd be like to have the kind of power that scarred it…

I wouldn't trade those times for the world… or all the suns and moons.

Then there was the time I tried to stop a slave caravan steamer… I stopped it, but got shot in the leg. The women and young boys that had been inside it had nowhere to go. The nearest town was nearly fifty isles away. The men I'd shot all needed attention an' I was no doctor. I didn't shoot all of 'em right, either, they were bleedin' badly and I couldn't even move. I thought I was gonna die, an' I thought the gang was gonna die, and I thought the kidnapped folk were gonna die under the suns an' it was the worst feelin' in the world. To this day, I don't know how I'd even managed to stop that small steamer. All I knew then was that I'd done what I'd thought was the right thing but that it was gonna cost all of our lives. That whole incident is pretty fuzzy to me now, but I do remember some pretty lady with big boobs hoverin' over my face, tryin' t' comfort me while another wrapped up m' leg. She told me that dyin' was better than the life they were all gonna have if I hadn't been there.

I remember wakin' up in a jail cell after that, my leg tightly bandaged an' hurtin', layin' on a bed with a mattress thin as paper, wrists in chains that connected to the wall. I was told that the ladies had brought me to town. I was bein' held, of course, 'cause I was Vash the Stampede. I never knew what happened to the caravan men. I'm not sure I want to know. Whether all of them or any of 'em lived or died, either way, my conscience would be burdened….men like that…

I wondered how Vash – the real one, had managed to do it. Him helping the bandit he'd shot replayed itself in my mind over and over again. The "saint Vash" stories always had it that he never killed and even helped the bad guys he had to hurt to bring peace to a situation… and it was true, I'd seen it happen, but how did he manage that? How did he manage to find any sort of care at all, let alone compassion, for people who made their living from hurting others? Those caravan men were scum. I wanted to be a peacemaker, but when I looked in m' heart, I didn't care if they died.

I'd managed to escape that night. The manacles on me had not been well-designed and the jail had not been well-built. Add to that understaffed guards that worked triple shifts and fell asleep on the job and a rather poor job of "hiding" my gun atop t' warden's desk and you get the picture. I'd studied Vash's fabled jailbreak techniques, as passed down in t' archived police reports of the towns that hosted him. I managed to limp away across t' desert and nurse m' leg back to health.

I got the surprise of m' life when I stopped into December City. I stopped into a little corner shop, bein' in need of oil for my gun. The shop was mostly for typewriters and sewing machine parts, but someone told me they sold gun parts and such, too. I saw a pretty older lady at t' counter, sandy blond-gray hair, really tall, really strong lookin'. She saw me and immediately gasped.

"Oh, Mr. Vash! We haven't seen you in ages! Meryl, get out here! Mr. Vash is here!"

Then her face fell in a look of utter disappointment. "You're not Mr. Vash," she said.

"Sure I am!" I replied, since there were other people in the store.

A very short woman with short dark gray hair came hobbling up to the counter, apparently from a back room. She was muttering "Bastard" this, and "Some nerve" that.

"I'm sorry, Meryl," the taller one said, "It's not really him. I made a mistake."

Meryl shot me a look. "No, you aren't him," she said, "but you have some nerve to dress up like that, you know. Some of us have gotten on with our lives."

"Sure I'm Vash!" I insisted. "I guess I must… know you two?"

"You think?" Meryl replied. "I loved the bastard, but he had to go on and live alone… spare me from his eternal youth, always going on about how everyone eventually dies around him, wanting to protect me from his psychotic brother and pining after a woman who's been dead for more than a century. No, you are not him. Your face is too innocent. You're a kid. Get on out of my shop, kid."

"I'm sorry… I had no idea," I said.

"Get out."

"You'd better listen to her," the tall woman said. I never did get her name.

I'd been travelin' at night when I got an even bigger surprise. I was on m' way away from December City. Got my gun oil at another shop. I'd gotten way out there, lights of the city off in the distance, buttes off across the desert and tall spires all 'round me. I never did expect to run into the Stampede's old friends and lovers. I just shrugged an' continued on.

I heard a sound and stopped in m' tracks. I brought out my custom gun, in m' left hand, by instinct. I was sure someone was followin' me, sure there was someone near. The gun leapt from my hand and fire was sent through m' wrist. Damn, that hurt! I looked 'round and saw a tall shadow. I couldn't tell if he had a weapon trained on me or not. I just stood there, rubbin' my wrist, eyes wide an' starin' like a skinned dog.

His hair was spiked up against the moon. His eyes shone like mirrors – he was wearin' glasses, orange tinted. Middle of the night an' he was wearin' sunglasses. He spoke to me with a voice that echoed across years. I knew that voice. I knew it.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" he asked me. "Go home and take off that costume."

"Vash?" I asked. "You're alive?"

"I suppose so," he replied, "Yep!"

"I was just tryin' to keep your name alive!" I said. "Keep on spreadin' love and peace. I wanted to be your legacy. No one's heard from you in a long, long time! I didn't want your name to die, so…"

He spoke very seriously then; "Mine is a name that needs to die."

"But… why?" I protested. "You're Vash the Stampede! The greatest gunman who ever lived! Savior of Inepril! The warrior of peace!"

"Destroyer of July and Augusta, the one that brought Sky City to the ground, the name spoken in whispers, the Agent of Chaos, the ultimate bounty… Kid, look… running around in that getup, pretending to be me, no matter how good your intentions – you're going to get hurt. You're probably going to get killed and then your family will cry."

"I've been shot!" I said. "I survived it! And I'm a great shot, Vash! If I can get to m' gun, I can show you! If you're not gonna be out there, maintain' the good of your name, I'll do it for ya!"

Vash sighed. I saw him shake his spiky head in the moonlight. "Kid, you're just not getting it," he said. "My skills are not _normal_. They aren't _human_. I'm surprised I'm alive, to tell you the truth. I've got a lot of blood on my hands. I don't want yours to add to it. Please, kid, just go on home."

He stepped forward and reached into one of his coat pockets and pulled something small out of it. "If you want to change the world," he said, "use your own name."

He handed me the object he'd pulled from his pocket. I looked at it in the moonlight.

"It's a sandsteamer ticket, Humpback Class… the Flourish?" I said. "It's worn and yellow. It doesn't have a destination written on it, either. Why would you give me this?"

"Think about it," Vash said with a smile. "That ticket is like your future. It's open, which means you can go anywhere you want to. Your future is yours – not mine. Live your own life. Change the world under your own name."

I'd looked up only to see his shadow, walking away. I'd followed after him until he disappeared behind a big boulder. I looked around all over after that, but he was gone.

Then, well, I returned to Inepril, came home to Ma and Pa. I hung the red coat up in m' closet. Kept the gun on m' hip though – it's useful for trick shooting, which I make a little money at, entertainin' tourists. I wear my hair down these days, in a center part, and my old brown cowboy hat upon my head. I go by Black Ace Brian sometimes, but mostly, folk just call me Brian.

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END.


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